Guild Wars 2

Sabull.5670:

Portal is amazing and interesting mechanic, it should not be 5 targets it would not even make sense.
[… ]
I could however agree on a ability, mayby a Scanning Device you could buy in a keep that would scan the keep and blink the map if any enemys are inside. This should look like a radar on the map for like 10seconds max. Mayby 50 supply for one time use, 100 for permanent object(superior) (scan has cooldown of 10 minutes).
It should not be too easy solution.
[…]

I tough the same, people got mad about portals as they want to leave the castle soon as possible back to the zerg, also its not portal fault if some are being able to hide, not even castle design problem.

Ecouraging people to defend castle would be nice, search n destroy instead of cap n leave tactits i see every day, sometimes all payers capping and none defending unless have only like 2 castle or 1 keep, and would make the massive zergtsunami smaller, i belive it would load faster on my client since theres less players on it.

Wonder if theres a possible system were guilds can take the castle as their own prize making the only neutral place SM, with actually some server buffs like orbs did, each castle could have a different buff, even on server changes a guild only would loose a castle if conquered by other world guild, each castle could have a chest with weekly rare rewards if they could defend it for that time, castles won by hostile worlds on home frontiers and borderlands would be neutral as the servers changes.

I think the idea that an engineer has a “scan” ability, or a ranger has a “track” ability that can reveal hidden charecter via showing their footprint path (track) or a glowing trail (scan) on the map, and see where players went within the last say 60s or so showing where people ran to hide to. Putting them on par as perfect Mesmer Sweepers.

But it’s not portal that the person who is upset a mesmer hid they are upset they couldn’t find them reasonably easy, and the fix isn’t kill mesmer it’s what’s another viable option to have a CHANCE to find said mesmers also giving other classes the ability to contribute tot he war efforts.

Portalling is powerful, but not many people actually use it.

Kelo.4370:

Rottaran Owain.6789:

I don’t think mesmer portals need to be toned down as much as other classes should have something that’s also game changing.

Mesmer portals encourages group communication, and coordination. Lets see some more of that on other classes.

This is something I could get behind. My primary problem with Mesmer’s is that they are just far too strong in WvW. Both Timewarp and Portal make them a MUST HAVE class in WvW compared to every other class, if you don’t have a mesmer with Timewarp and Portal than you are severely at a disadvantage to a group that does, this is both in sPvP and WvW.

What the portal gets used for is NOT THE ISSUE HERE!! What is the issue is that one class has become MUST HAVE and all the others have nothing they can bring that is as strong. Maybe you can argue that the current implementation of Thief’s Shadow Refuge is up there in game changing utility but that skill only effects 5 people not THE ENTIRE SERVER like the Portal can. That is the problem here and why it is too strong.

Either make the Portal have a limit on it’s uses or change the other classes to have something that is a must have and completely changes the way WvW works without breaking sPvP/PvE. As I see it the vastly easier solution would be to just make the portal only work on a limited number of players before dispersing. Make that number 5 to bring it in line with other strong skills like Shadow Refuge and other Boons/AoE Skills or if that is too small 10 people would at least be something…..

REMEMBER: What the Portal is used for = NOT IMPORTANT
WHAT IS IMPORTANT = How strong this skill is compared to every other skill in the game, it changes the entire landscape of WvW. No other skill in the game does this to such a extreme degree.

Without Portal and TW, what does a mesmer bring to WvW/sPvP? Lackluster dps, scares people due to clones, and sends berserkers in at siege… Utility is the name of the game for them, and I would argue that WvW without a CC Ele sucks, or a couple Tank types, Engi AOE’s, etc… it all changes the landscape, mesmer just has utility skills for movement. Great class if played well, mediocre if in the hands of an amateur.

When did I ever say remove those skills? The problem is how strong it is compared to everyone else in the game and the fact they can bring both of those abilities at the same time.

There seems to be some lack of knowledge shown in some posts about how Mesmer portals work.

Mesmers cannot stay perma-stealthed themselves

Mesmers cannot portal into a keep/tower or whatever unless they drop their portal in there first.

Mesmer portal cool down is 1 minute. Once a Mesmer drops one portal, they have 60 seconds to drop the second Portal or the skill goes on cool down for the 1 minute.

Once both portals are down, they only last for approx. 12 seconds and not the 20 seconds on the tooltip.

Mesmers Portal ability is often used as a solo defensive ability on melee and not just for Portal bombs or for getting other players or supplies into towers/keeps.

Portals are often useless in WvW with pugs and are usually only effective with party or guild coordination.

It amuses me when people think that guardians and mesmers are the only useful classes in Guild Wars 2.

Sure mesmers can portal the opponent zerg through… but that doesn’t mean an elementalist, necro, or engineer can’t AOE the activated portal…

You just have to be alert all the time… no time to let your guard down.

The portal sites are visible to everyone, it’s not like they’re invisible…

And that’s the way it should remain…

Xavi.6591:

There seems to be some lack of knowledge shown in some posts about how Mesmer portals work.

Mesmers cannot stay perma-stealthed themselves

Mesmers cannot portal into a keep/tower or whatever unless they drop their portal in there first.

Mesmer portal cool down is 1 minute. Once a Mesmer drops one portal, they have 60 seconds to drop the second Portal or the skill goes on cool down for the 1 minute.

Once both portals are down, they only last for approx. 12 seconds and not the 20 seconds on the tooltip.

Mesmers Portal ability is often used as a solo defensive ability on melee and not just for Portal bombs or for getting other players or supplies into towers/keeps.

Portals are often useless in WvW with pugs and are usually only effective with party or guild coordination.

Love it man! I’m too lazy to post all the specifics, and then poof there you are hehe. This game seems to really like cloaking for some reason, hence why we run thieves and mesmers to produce that effect at crucial moments.

Kelo.4370:

When did I ever say remove those skills? The problem is how strong it is compared to everyone else in the game and the fact they can bring both of those abilities at the same time.

if it’s about other classes not having enough “luster” why is the call to take away from one to make us all “lack-luster”, why are there not ideas to give other classes or use the current abilities that are overlooked already more.

We move people via port but we can’t sprint or move ourselves very fast compared to all other classes. Mesmers aren’t saying hey nerf all swiftness ability. You know how annoying it gets to HAVE to be in a zerg to be able to move at the same pace as all the other classes. We are part thief yet we don’t get a theifs innate runspeed abilities. We are Part protector but don’t wear heavy armor, we are a Utility class, we serve the forces on the map. Our whole purpose is service.

We have a strong identity, we know what our job is, and many other now know how to use us properly form months of Mesmers educating their commanders and community. It was not like this in the beginning. Take away a professions identity pulls down one leg of the WvW survival balance, as the same people who are angry with portal today don’t even know much of how it or the class works, and they will next week be saying Ele’s can heal too much, a guardian can block too much, until we get to necro’s.

Portals are not what any of these replies are angry with it’s culling/render, it’s AoE restrictions, It’s the requirement to sweep, it’s “my” class doesn’t have enough individuality… Start giving constructive feedback to improve THOSE things you are really upset with.

Well if limiting the number of people that can use a portal is off the table then here is my list of what other classes need to bring to WvW.

Thief – Shadow Refuge is good but maybe allow it to effect more players at once since portal can work on the entire server, bring a whole new meaning to invisible Zerg!

Warrior – Give their ground shattering skills ability to do more damage to siege, such as Death from Above and Stomp

Ranger – As some others have said, the ability to track other players on the map would be seriously nice, Ranger’s are trackers and really need some way to actually bring that into the game allowing them to track enemy players would make them worthwhile to have in WvW

Elementalist – As some others have said as well with the AoE limit, maybe give them a trait in the Fire line to up the amount of targets Fire spells can hit at once maybe to 10 from 5 would make them a lot more effective against portal bombs and massive groups of enemies.

Necromancer – I have no idea why Mesmer gets the res a bunch of people skill, Necro’s should get something that instantly brings back someone from being fully dead (not downed) maybe make it a small ground targeted AoE so that a group of Necro’s could combat res an entire Zerg if allowed to do so (give it like a 1-2 second cast time). This would make them useful in WvW and not such a joke of a profession.

Guardian – Already good and already very strong in WvW they may not break the game as much as Mesmer’s do but they already are a requirement when used properly

Engineer – Why the hell can they not repair siege equipment??? The profession is ENGINEER it’s what they do! Engineer should be allowed to repair siege after it’s been placed using up the supply they have. For balance reasons maybe make the amount of supply needed to repair something be 2-3 times the cost of building it (the amount of health to supply required). Just give Engineer something to do other than SPAM GRENADES ALL DAY! It would be really nice and make them unique and required in WvW just like Mesmer’s currently are.

ANet needs to stop messing around with foo foo crap like mad kings, new armor, and such and get down to Nerfing the Heck out of Mesmers and Thieves.

2 things i would change about mesmer portals in wvw.

change the colour to match the team, so i can tell if the kitten purple circle next to me is our teams or not.

and make it actually have a cast time, preferably similiar to meteor storms.

after that im good with it.

Seems a lot of folks need to learn how the skills a mesmer has works. Xavi put it quite well actually…

A few solutions to preventing the portal bomb are to kill the mesmer before they get close enough to you. We most commonly portal bomb when being sieged from afar by catas or something like that. But it still takes a lone mesmer to run out there and set the end portal… kill them before they get there and have a chance to set it. Problem solved…

Sweeping for mesmers after capturing something isn’t that difficult either. It takes a few minutes of your time and knowing where to look. I’m still learning all the good hiding spots to be honest, since normally when I hide I am discovered anyway lol. Long before I can duck somewhere.

It’s just about being aware of what’s going on and reacting accordingly.

As far as the culling issue, I don’t see how it’s too big a problem… You can still see when a portal activates because it glows, and is very very obvious. You could attempt to break up the people porting to you by using pushbacks, fear and that sort of thing. On top of aoe of course. You can also aim siege at it, as siege does not have a max 5 people cap on the AOE it creates.

I think where the culling issue is more a problem is with things like stealth. Also how it wont render characters until after you’ve gotten so close to a certain zone on a map (like say there is a zerg across some of the bridges in certain areas, you wont see all the people until you’re right smack in the middle of them).

But the culling is entirely something else…

If they did put a cap on the number of uses for portals, we’d just be stringing multiple portals along with multiple mesmers. It’d take a bit more coordination but you could still end up with a mass of people porting to you.

have portal work on 5 players max per use?

1. how do you kill a mesmer when they are stealthed? Do you really think guild groups have visible mesmers just run straight in? No they use group stealth abilities / smoke fields to build stealth so you cannot see them approach. You’ll never see a good portal bombing team coming. The moment you see the portal they are already on you.

1. There is not skill in portal bombing. It easy mode for guild movement. In other games you have to use terrain to your advantage to be sneaky and hit someone in the rear, go around the back of a keep, or send a small bait force to distract them. With portal it just turns into, build stealth on mesmer, have them portal us, win.

1. Although it is not the mesmer’s or thief’s fault that culling is broken, CULLING IS BROKEN, and aoe stealth / portal abuse the broken system. If culling cannot be fixed in the mean time, then the abilities that abuse the bug need to be taken offline until it can be fixed. Just like with the orbs and orb hacks. That doesn’t mean portal can’t come back, but you shouldn’t leave a gaping exploit that ruins the game play for a great number of the population in. It is an exploit by the way. A bug is intentionally being used to use an ability in a way or gain an affect that was not intended. Portal + stealth is intentionally used by guild teams, with full knowledge that doing so breaks the culling system, granting them invisibility from their enemies. It does not matter if everyone can do it.

Despite the moaning mesmer, even without portal have a lot going for them. Tons of pets that work well to neutralize AoE, lots of projectile reflects, the best confusion stacking in the game, and group quickness.

They’ve got a lot of fantastic skills that easily earns them a spot in any WvW group.

if portal / stealth get removed thief / mesmer will need a review and some slight changes. But a bugged ability that is being exploited to an extreme extent should not be left in game. It ruins game play for many and drives them away from the WvW and the game in general.

Portal bad for the game? Hardly, and I’m a guardian. Nothing pleases me more than after we take a keep or something major to hear, “check every hiding place, we don’t want any Mesmer’s hiding”. I think it is a great element to the game.

Be lucky they don’t allow a class, especially Thiefs, to scale walls. Then you would have another issue in which you say is ground breaking. Honestly, we all know how they work. Just adapt. Let us not dumb down the game

Portal is good, but do it for only 5 ppl and problme solved … still can port golem. But this stop port bombs

It still renders the portal exit on your screen does it not? Maybe I’m missing something here but how exactly does it abuse the culling system when you know exactly where they’re popping up? (honest question, not trying to be a smartass I promise) Certainly a thief (or many) stealthing permanently is more irritating than a big bright circle on the ground where it’s pretty obvious where they are.

Granted our portal bombs aren’t always so grand, I feel we need some more guardians when we run ours but that’s something different.

And like I said, use siege on the kitten thing if you can. Build some arrowcarts or ballista while you’re getting catas up. Even one would suffice I would think. Provided the bombing side doesn’t kill it before it’s useful I guess.

I just think the culling is what really needs to be fixed. I used to hate thieves until I took the time to learn their weaknesses and how exactly they work. I have not played one that much, but I’ve learned enough from the people who do to know how to counter them the best I can. I don’t think their stealthing ability needs to be nerfed, I don’t think their damage needs to be nerfed, I think the culling needs to be fixed. Countering a glass canon thief is a kitten and a half certainly, especially if you yourself are glass canon, but it isn’t impossible.

The same could probably be said for mesmers and the portals. Your side is not limited to not using portals to your advantage either of course. A lot of people here have tried to explain ways to counter it, all of which are viable. Portal bombs are not indestructible.

I just have accepted it as part of the game mechanics and it adds another side to strategy.

Half of you need to role a mesmer and test portal out for yourselves so you understand it’s mechanics. The amount of misinformation in this thread is sad. I’d be screaming for nerfs too if i believed a mesmer could walk up to a keep, cast portal on one side… then magically cast it on the other side and portal 100 buddies into the keep lord’s room.

If Mesmers can port through walls, then why can’t the Necromancer?
Heck, the Necromancer port won’t even go across cracks in the ground or up in elevation a couple feet, let alone through anything, and it’s just for the Necromancer. And a 4000 range which people say isn’t that good. Try 1200 for a Necromancer.

And frankly, the Mesmer portals ruin what little there is to strategy in WvW the way it is. Why have siege weapons at all when they can be aoe’d from the ground or avoided entirely? Take down all the walls and just put flags everywhere and people can zerg control of them back and forth. Seems to be what it is mostly now anyway.

Eirik.9145:

If Mesmers can port through walls, then why can’t the Necromancer?

Because Mesmers cannot port through walls.

Eirik.9145:

If Mesmers can port through walls, then why can’t the Necromancer?
Heck, the Necromancer port won’t even go across cracks in the ground or up in elevation a couple feet, let alone through anything, and it’s just for the Necromancer. And a 4000 range which people say isn’t that good. Try 1200 for a Necromancer.

And frankly, the Mesmer portals ruin what little there is to strategy in WvW the way it is. Why have siege weapons at all when they can be aoe’d from the ground or avoided entirely? Take down all the walls and just put flags everywhere and people can zerg control of them back and forth. Seems to be what it is mostly now anyway.

We still have to be sitting on the other side of that wall to put a portal there and then get one on the other side in order to portal people in. It isn’t so easy as people think if the enemy is aware enough to look out for mesmers hiding in their captured keeps. We can’t magically blink up walls or through them…

And yes, portal does indeed have a distance limit which isn’t so far as it seems. Often times for me it’s a guessing game basing it solely off eyeballing the distance I’ve gone from portal to portal to know if it’ll link or not. It’s quite touchy really… I kinda wish there was a distance meter of some kind, like a trail from where I set the first to where I want to set the second that’d tell me if I’m too far or not… but that’s something different entirely.

One thing I do agree with is perhaps tinting the portals a colour based on server colour. So that you know if a beginning or end portal is friendly or not. Other than standing over it to see if it’ll let you use it.

I like the Mesmer-Portal the way it is.

I think it is very refreshing and leaves much space for tactics to develop. Without it ist would be much more Zerg vs Zerg without any meaning behind it, the Team with more Ranger/Ele wins becouse of the AOE they do.

But I realy like the Ideas of Kelo to add every Class a special ability for WvW.

greetz

Xerre.9678:

Without Portal and TW, what does a mesmer bring to WvW/sPvP? Lackluster dps, scares people due to clones, and sends berserkers in at siege… Utility is the name of the game for them, and I would argue that WvW without a CC Ele sucks, or a couple Tank types, Engi AOE’s, etc… it all changes the landscape, mesmer just has utility skills for movement. Great class if played well, mediocre if in the hands of an amateur.

This.
As a Mesmer I struggle so see what I could bring to the table if portals got removed. I don’t do much damage (as a condition Mesmer) and I have pretty much zero aoe. People cry about the izerker as hax, so what am I meant to do in wvw…
Why does a portal have to be balanced. Every other class has their own flavour… Thieves with stealth, warriors with massive crits and dps, ele’s and huge aoe.

Simple fact is to use portal we lose a utility for 1 min, for something that doesn’t last long and most other classes don’t even understand (I don’t understand how people can not see a big glowing purple thing with ‘F to portal’ and still run past it). I use it to speed up supply runs, to run out and hurt offencive seige and portal back to safety. I use it all the time it…

And it’s going to get removed because of people having a cry about losing a keep they zerged into and 5seconds later zerged onto the next karma target.
If you don’t want to put the effort in to secure your conquests you don’t deserve to keep them.
Why should mindless zergs be rewarded?

Despite my main being a Mesmer, I don’t have a strong feeling on the portal one way or the other. But I wanted to throw out a quick thought after reading over what everyone has said here and see what y’all think about it.

What if the portal only worked with line of sight? In other words, I can’t plop down a portal, get on the other side of a wall, and have that work. I’d have to get to a location where I can clearly see my portal entry point for anyone to be able to come through it.

Which brings up a slight side question, do people standing in the way count as blocking line of sight?

A 20-30 unrendered toon portal bomb is a mindless culling exploiting zerg. I prefer to actually see the mindless zergs I’m fighting.

TheFreshBrew.1958:

A 20-30 unrendered toon portal bomb is a mindless culling exploiting zerg. I prefer to actually see the mindless zergs I’m fighting.

those porting in cant see you any better than you can see them. Portal does not have a culling buff. It isn’t an exploit when it effects both sides.

Arani.9057:

I think the idea that an engineer has a “scan” ability, or a ranger has a “track” ability that can reveal hidden charecter via showing their footprint path (track) or a glowing trail (scan) on the map, and see where players went within the last say 60s or so showing where people ran to hide to. Putting them on par as perfect Mesmer Sweepers.

But it’s not portal that the person who is upset a mesmer hid they are upset they couldn’t find them reasonably easy, and the fix isn’t kill mesmer it’s what’s another viable option to have a CHANCE to find said mesmers also giving other classes the ability to contribute tot he war efforts.

This is good in theory, but the sad part is once you add a way to detect players such as scanning or tracking, a hack can be made that gives any player the ability to do it. Especially in a game like GW2 where it relies heavily on client side data. We saw this in Age of Conan where rangers could track on the mini-map, a hack was developed that allowed any class to activate the same mechanic and see all player dots on the minimap.

If GW2 didn’t rely on client side data so much, the game itself would suffer with major rubber banding and other latency orientated crap because the server determines where you are and everything around you instead of both client and server correlating the data.
(I probably could explain this better, I’m sure an expert will pop in to correct me if I haven’t explained it correctly)

Already said this many times:
1. Make the portal bigger, easier to spot.
2. Make it destructible. It has a set amount of HP like a summoned pet etc.
3. Increase the cool-down (at least 180 sec) so as not to make every minor engagement turn into a rendering abuse.

Cap the people that can go passed the portal.

redknight.8036:

2. Make it destructible. It has a set amount of HP like a summoned pet etc.

Again. This. Even if it has 30K HP. You’re creating a tactical asset that can’t be removed by force once emplaced. Give it an HP bar and it is still viable and useful, but can be countered.

I would like to see portal being limited to 5 players. This does not invalidate the strategy of hiding mesmers in keeps but it makes it more risky since the mesmer needs to make the portal a few times to let the entire zerg in. It shouldn’t allow 40 or more people to instantly get on the walls, the defenders should have a little more time to react.

I find all this amusing, the fix for true “portal bombs” is not limit the number but more make it so siege weapons can not be moved by it. Portals are handy but the cool down is high, we have to be on the spot we want the portal, range isn’t as far as you think.

Several times I have been in a keep when it’s taken and stood on an outer wall and nobody EVER looked for me. I didn’t hide, I was in plain sight. so don’t blame mesmers for your fault not to look.

the only issue is culling and it affects both sides at the same time.

It’s a movement based ability, there is no reason to nerf something that is easily countered. instead of screaming nerf it why not get better and learn how to take care of it. Don’t get mad cause you lost kills because the Mesmer used portals as an escape route when you out number their group.

Enenion have you ever ported a zerg? they don’t listen, don’t communicate and usually a memser has to portal them in in small groups anyways because of that, when they are left alive in the keep cause you didn’t check for them.

It’s a small duration of time the portal can be used, and many times people don’t get in it anyways. there is nothing wrong with it, just bad players that can not look around and defend against it.

redknight sure give it HP but make it so it doesn’t disappear after 12 seconds but lasts until the mes casts it again, as your summoned pet idea does.

A debuff wouldn’t be a bad idea on non mesmers though but it would still wear off before the portal cool down is up which makes it a moot point.

My suggestion is roll a mesmer level to 80 and see how well you can manage a portal bomb. I refuse to portal bomb as it leaves me open to slaughter as I would have to run ahead and be there and alive to activate the portal. they make more effective escape routes than attack facilities.

Kelo.4370:

Well if limiting the number of people that can use a portal is off the table then here is my list of what other classes need to bring to WvW.

Thief – Shadow Refuge is good but maybe allow it to effect more players at once since portal can work on the entire server, bring a whole new meaning to invisible Zerg!

Engineer – Why the hell can they not repair siege equipment??? The profession is ENGINEER it’s what they do! Engineer should be allowed to repair siege after it’s been placed using up the supply they have. For balance reasons maybe make the amount of supply needed to repair something be 2-3 times the cost of building it (the amount of health to supply required). Just give Engineer something to do other than SPAM GRENADES ALL DAY! It would be really nice and make them unique and required in WvW just like Mesmer’s currently are.

I agree on Engineer being able to repair sieges with the Wrench kit.

Right now, the wrench kit is completely useless.

Don’t know if it has been mentioned but one other cheesy use of Portal is to bypass the defenses at a breach in a keep wall.

One Mesmers gets through with and, voila, the entire besieging team is on the keep lord.

Why defend if that’s just going to happen?

Portals should not be usable when there is a wall in between their entrances (even if it is breached).

Have been playing a mesmer since headstart, in the last couple of days I started to look at WvW.
I was not aware of the rendering issue and i suspect almost 80% of people using stealth (mesmers & thieves) is in same situation as me. Let them fix this, I say; then let’s think about portal and its imbalance.

Anyway, my 2 cents on the main argument:
As soon as you portal in the middle of a zerg, you are affected by the same rendering issues as they are, effectively putting you in the same disadvantage.
Second, it takes coordination to get a great number of people to the other side of a portal (not mentioning the fact that I need to be in that place first): many players won’t notice that big purple thing on the ground or they would think it’s an enemy portal (this could be avoided if, as mentioned before, an effect like the house on shadow refuge would be added) making difficult to get the portal bomb going if not on a teamspeak server.
An elementalist shocking field would hinder its usefulness in my opinion: you have a lot of people standing in one spot, without the ability to move away from it unless they choose to get stunned for a while (as long as i tested, shocking field cannot be dodged through), so, if a smart ele sees it, rendering issue or not, you have time to point your sieges there.

So, in short, I don’t think it needs to be nerfed now. I’d like to use it when the rendering issue is fixed and see if it’s still gambreaking or not; note that I don’t think it is, because the issue affects both teams.

Have pity of me if there are some grammar errors and such, I’m posting from phone and English is not my primary language! :P

as others have said, portal bomb rendering issues effect both sides (I’ve been on both sides of a portal bomb type attack and been blind to who’s attacking what). So that aside, those who get upset about portal bombs are upset that surprise attacks are surprising. Go figure.

Portals are fine. Me and my guild have crushed portal bombs on many occasions. They’re beatable. Thus fine. Just because you’re running around with a mindless zerg that doesn’t look for the big pink thing on the ground makes you the bad player not the portal. It’s easy to crush if you watch for it, then simply aoe the crap out of it. Things die, fast.

But, as with all MMO’s, enough whining gets their way like a crying child. And supposedly portals are going to be nerfed for all you bads.

Don’t worry, you’ll still lose.

In my opinion Anet should just restrict the amount of people that can go through a portal. 5 or 10 persons as a cap would be fine. Two days ago, we were defending a tower. We were 12-13 persons. Our opponent used trebuchets to bring down our walls, which they did. We managed to hold the enemy force for about 20-30 minutes even though our walls were down. After that a portal pops up and 40+ persons were at our position and killed everything in just 1 min max. If the portal were limited to 5-10 persons, we would have not lost our tower. That´s why i think a cap must be introduced asap.

Regards

Seed

Are people completely incapable of stopping portalbombs or something? When we see a mesmer (especially one with a commander icon) running to our siege or through a breach we call it out on voice comms and nuke that sucker. When we see a portal magically appear by our siege we call it out, stack on that thing, and nuke people as they come through. I think I’ve wiped maybe once in the last 10 or so enemy portalbombs we’ve run into.

The people coming out of the portal also don’t seem to know where to attack most of the time because we aren’t rendering yet. If you actually have good voice comms it seems like culling actually works against the team that’s portalbombing rather than the team defending against it.

zastari.1730:

The people coming out of the portal also don’t seem to know where to attack most of the time because we aren’t rendering yet. If you actually have good voice comms it seems like culling actually works against the team that’s portalbombing rather than the team defending against it.

Exactly my point. That’s why I hope they’d leave portal as it is.

Speaking as a mesmer as my main class , i think people neeed to get there facts right. the culling affect problem isnt a problem with the skill but the server. with that in mind for that affect its anet that needs to fix it. and all those who still use portal bombing dont complain when it happens to u. to pull it off is nice when ur opposeing force is lock solid in there def line.

as to nerfing it. i think people need to get off mesmers portal and really get back on the theif bug right now(whitch relates to culling) its abused way more then any culling affect with portals.

as to the sweeping keeps for mesmers, all i can say is that has been an issue in this game since l2 with ncsoft. if u do not sweep properly for spies.mesmers or w/e then u deserve to lose it til u learn to. i myself have sat in certain keeps for hours. only 1 time so far ive been found and im 99% sure that is due to people useing un sportsmenship tactics of spying on the other side. (after 3 hours if u never once go by this spot then i remind the cmdr im hideing 5 mins later they find me. i find it highly suspect. but i digress.)

mesmers cant port/blink or teleport up walls/hills or thru them. the porting thru walls ur refering to is a bug with a skill . what happens is when u use something like decoy say it bounces u back a few feet. if angled wrong ull go thru a wall(glitched terrian) ive done it myself in the intesne fights. aside from that and the culling affect i dont see how there so op as say thiefs being perm stealth dureing fights becuase of culling affect or being perma stealth in keeps/tower/depot circles.

or how bout the newly discouered ele build where u can take on 6-8 people and right as ur about to die u get some kinda telly that allows u to speed run away . basiclly leaveing u trying to chase them down. now i know moa and there sunk but still ur complaining about portals. these have way worste affects on the game.

Takaidira.6501:

i think people need to get off mesmers portal and really get back on the theif bug right now(whitch relates to culling) its abused way more then any culling affect with portals.

The distinction is that culling is a problem for every profession, it isn’t a “thief bug”, while portals are specifically a mesmer ability.

Takaidira.6501:

or how bout the newly discouered ele build where u can take on 6-8 people and right as ur about to die u get some kinda telly that allows u to speed run away . basiclly leaveing u trying to chase them down. now i know moa and there sunk but still ur complaining about portals. these have way worste affects on the game.

Newly discovered since when? Beta? It’s an offhand dagger skill that bugs out 80% of the time. Thieves can stil; chase, it doesnt cleanse conditions, doesnt work while immobilized.

Portal has more strength than weakness now. (in fact this is not elite skill and has short cd (60 s))
1. It can port any number of people from 1 to 100 or more.
2. Bi-directional (no consequence if plan failed as you can escape easily by press F before portal shutdown).
3. AOE CAP exploit >>> automatically (after porting people will automatically stack with each other).

What I dont care: how the hell mesmer can port people inside wall of tower or keep (as long as they do not use any cheat or exploit), how the hell mesmer can port in our back undetected, how the hell I cant see any enemy (culling), and I dont care how is your CD portal skill work. I only now that if I am not casting my portal exit after 60s, my portal skill is not in CD >> I can cast portal entre directly.

What I propose:
1. limit portal to port 15 – 20 (it can be more but it must have limit) >>> giving place to new tactic.
2. only 1 way port. (no easy escape).
3. Set of Portals cannot stack (it might be 100 range apart or more) >>> force people to move and act fast.

@Takaidira
Its not new discovered build, its off hand dagger ability 4, air attuned (you rarely see this as ele using -/d is rarely seen in WvW, but in PvE or SPvP there are lot). Or they use mist form or blink (short range).

Moa form >>> single target, have long CD >>> fair not a game breaking.

deviller.9135:

@Takaidira
Its not new discovered build, its off hand dagger ability 4, air attuned (you rarely see this as ele using -/d is rarely seen in WvW, but in PvE or SPvP there are lot). Or they use mist form or blink (short range).

Moa form >>> single target, have long CD >>> fair not a game breaking.

Actually if you see any kind of good ele, they’re almost all using D/D in open field combat and is gives better mobility, better defense, and better burst than staff. Generic D/D combo allows for AoE burst of around 15k-20k with 2 AoE CC’s, a good (but bug ridden) gap closer/escape, 2 fire fields and 3 blast finishers, in addition to AoE chill, ranged charge/immobilize.

I’ve seen some very effective staff ele’s, but for burst, bunker and skirmish, D/D is IMO superior. Personally, I only swap to staff when assaulting or defending a walled objective. And don’t even talk about elites, ele’s have an absolutely awful selection, it’s so bad most eles would gladly give up their elites for another utility skill slot.

No one should be commenting on eles (or mesmers) unless the have played one to at least 60.

Here’s what I’ve seen happen many times with a Zerg VS Zerg. A large battle is taking place. One Mesmer stealths into the center of the opposing Zerg, opens a portal, and then 30 players jump out from behind, or the middle of the unsuspecting crowd.

The tactic is interesting. Though I’m unsure it’s a fair thing to do in an online game where not everyone has the same connection speeds and performance. If AOE wasn’t nerfd to hit only 5 players at once, then maybe I wouldn’t mind. Players could look for the portal and drop an AOE. But since AOE is 5 capped, so should a Mesmers portal be 5 players / uses at a time capped… then it disappears. Fx5=disappear. Leave everything else the same.

Un`nerf AOE, then maybe it will be ok. But then we are still faced with an online game, that attempts to multi- render large groups of players to a new position very quickly. Capping the portal, may help save ANET some server performance issues. It could also ease troubles with “lag” and performance for all players.

If a Mesmer can port five players on a 60 second cool down, this still allows for great tactics. It also grants a little time for a fair counter strike. It would simply mean the Mesemer and players must be a little more strategic, instead of instant ZERG. I also suggest that portals can not be overlapped onto each other, from multiple Mesmers.

See? No major sweeps or nerfs. Just minor adjustments.

The portal has two basic problems.
1) The skill should be one way as described, Portal Entry and Portal Exit.
2) The current culling issue should dictate a player limit on people using it. I don’t mind the portal bomb and I don’t like being killed by players that not rendered.

I also think the portal entry and exit point should have a taller brighter glow.

To me the big problem with wvw has been and continues to be that most of the meta is not about the actual game, but rather ways of taking advantage of broken aspects.

Portal bomb — It feels cheap and makes the game seem stupid.

Every war has infiltration groups, or ways of deploying massive amounts of ground forces quickly. It just so happens that in the world of Tyria, we use magic instead of APCs or paratroopers.

Also, every war has infantry units which are specialized in gaining access to enemy strongholds or fortifications with the purpose of getting their own army within the enemy’s territory.

Not every infantry’s role is to be a sack of meat with a weapon.